Lean Blog Interviews

My guest for episode #197 is a hospital leader I really respect, Kim Barnas, author of the new book Beyond Heroes. Until very recently, Kim was a Senior VP at ThedaCare, leading Appleton Medical Center and Theda Clark Hospital. I've seen Kim speak to groups at ThedaCare and a few conferences and she has a lot to teach us about Lean leadership, using her stories and experiences in a way that's very powerful. I hope you'll check out the book.In the podcast today, we talk about topics including her initial reactions to Lean when first introduced to it as a hospital leader, why "heroes" are overrated and sometimes create "chaos" in healthcare, and the importance of moving beyond tools and projects to a Lean culture and management system.Kim talks about the need to "create more value" (not just reduce waste), saying "just trying to do more with less makes no sense - you need a plan." We also talk about programs like GM's "Speak up for Safety," where she says that speaking up "needs to be a conversation, not a repo